Prospective and retrospective evaluations of experiences: how you evaluate an experience depends on when you evaluate it

Prior research (cf. Soman & Shi, 2001 ) has shown that obstacles and periods of low progress in an experience reduce the evaluation of that experience. In this research, we propose that the temporal distance between the obstacle and the time of making the evaluation moderates the effect of the obstacle. Consequently, an early (late) obstacle reduces prospective (retrospective) evaluation more significantly than a late (early) obstacle. In two experiments, we find support for this temporal proximity hypothesis. Further, differences between prospective and retrospective evaluations disappeared when the data were analyzed in terms of temporal distance, suggesting that the judgment policies underlying prospective and retrospective evaluations were the same. We also show that it is possible to create pairs of paths such that one of the two paths would be preferred when viewed in prospect, but the other path might be preferred in retrospect. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Adam Smith,Ethicist

This essay argues that Adam Smith's political economy is premised upon a moral anthropology, and that greater attention to Smith from religious ethicists may both improve Smith scholarship and deepen dialogue on economic themes within the field of religious ethics. It does so first by surveying common readings of Smith and noting that engagement of his work within religious ethics and theology tends to rely on misconceptions prevalent in these readings. It then outlines the moral psychology that links Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments and Wealth of Nations and explains the importance of this moral psychology for Smith's ambivalent analysis of commercial society. Reflecting on the case of Smith's work, it concludes by arguing that attention from religious ethicists may also improve contemporary political economic debates, given that they are often premised upon latent assumptions about moral anthropology.     

Rethinking Moral Agency in Markets: A Book Discussion on Behavioral Economics

Recent work in behavioral economics and psychology provides valuable resources for religious ethicists. This book discussion examines contributions by Cass Sunstein, Daniel Kahneman, George Akerlof and Rachel Kranton, Uri Gneezy and John A. List, and Douglas Hough. This literature raises important questions about ethical decision‐making, moral agency and responsibility, and the ethics of life in global capitalism. It also opens up promising areas for interdisciplinary dialogue between economics and religious studies. This book discussion concludes that religious ethicists have much to contribute to the conversations about moral anthropology that are now being held in behavioral economic research, and to the broader political economic debates in which this research participates.     

Failures to induce implicit evaluations by means of approach–avoid training

Woud, Becker, and Rinck (2008) asked participants to repeatedly push pictures of certain faces away and to pull pictures of other faces towards them using a joystick. Performance in a subsequent affective priming task showed that previously pulled faces evoked more positive implicit evaluations then previously pushed faces. We report five studies in which we failed to find consistent evidence for the effect of approach–avoid training on implicit evaluations. We also failed to reproduce the effect reported by Woud et al. when reanalysing their data. An overall analysis that included our data, the data of Woud et al. and additional data provided by Woud and colleagues also did not reveal a significant effect of approach–avoid training on implicit evaluations. We conclude that the impact of approach–avoid training on implicit evaluations is subject to subtle boundary conditions.     

Symbioses Can Transcend Particularisms: A Memoir of Friendship with Ralph Wendell Burhoe

Ralph Burho's paradigmatic scientific innovation is the extension of the concept of symbiosis to coadapted human genotypes and "culturetypes," centered on religion. Civilization also requires a coexistent secular arena, where religion's nearness may help prevent our natural synergistic instrumentalizations of each other from degrading to losses of respect for one another as responsible free agents. The mixed messages in the Bible's diverse stories help to preserve a richness of choices in memory as we navigate history. We science-and-religion theorists should expand our cademic base to include economics, politics, literature, and other areas, while emulating Ralph's wise and good-humored ways of drawing us together and affecting our lives.     

浅析生命质量在药物评价中的作用

随着医学模式的转变及心身医学的发展,近年来,生命质量的评定已成为一些药物评价的重要指标。由于生命质量的评定较好地反映了药物对患者身体、情感、社会心理等方面的影响,从而能够较为全面地评价药物疗效,有助于有效地指导临床选择用药。本文阐述了生命质量的定义,在药物评价中应考虑其对生命质量的影响以及通过实例说明如何进行生命质量的评定     

Social evaluation research: the evaluation of two police patrolling strategies

In most social evaluation research it is difficult to achieve the degree of experimental rigor possible in an applied behavioral study. This study illustrates how the evaluation researcher can increase experimental rigor in the analysis of social interventions. In the first evaluation, a variation of the time-series design that offered maximum experimental control given the limitations of the situation, was employed to evaluate the effects of a specialized home-burglary police patrol. This design revealed that no effects could be attributed to the patrol. In the second evaluation, a multiple baseline-like design was possible in determining the effects of a police walking patrol. This design revealed that the patrol produced an increase in crime reporting but not in arrests. Social interventions often occur in a manner that allows varying degrees of experimental analysis. The evaluation researcher must attain optimal experimental analysis given the limitations of each social intervention.     

Do incompatible arguments cause extensive processing in the evaluation of arguments? The role of congruence between argument compatibility and argument quality

Previous studies have demonstrated that arguments incompatible with prior beliefs are subjected to more extensive refutational processing, scrutinized longer, and judged to be weaker than arguments compatible with prior beliefs. However, this study suggests whether extensive processing is implemented when evaluating arguments is not decided by argument compatibility, but by congruence between two evaluating tendencies elicited by both argument compatibility and argument quality. Consistent with this perspective, the results of two experiments show that relative to congruent arguments, participants judged arguments eliciting incongruent evaluating tendencies as less extreme in strength, spent more time, and felt more hesitant generating strength judgments for them. The results also show that it is mainly incongruent arguments, not congruent arguments, whose strength ratings were more closely associated with the perceived personal importance of the issue, which intensified the tendency to evaluate arguments depending on argument compatibility. These results suggest that it is the incongruity between argument compatibility and argument quality, and not simply the argument compatibility, that plays a more important role in activating an extensive processing in the evaluation of arguments.     

Effects of priming self‐construals on self‐evaluations: Cultural game player perspective

This study examined the validity of situational view on culture‐specific behaviours focusing on self‐evaluation. Two experiments with American students as samples were conducted to examine whether priming their self‐construals would affect individuals' self‐evaluation. In Experiment 1, the participants' self‐evaluation was compared across different conditions of primed self‐contruals. In Experiment 2, the participants were split into 2 groups based on their initial default self‐consturals and, the self‐evaluations were compared across the 2 groups after priming self‐contruals. The results demonstrated that although the participants' self‐evaluation was initially in accord with their default self‐construal, it changed into accord with the primed self‐construals. The findings supported the proposed cultural game player view. Implications on situational view of self‐evaluation are also discussed.     

Toward quantifying the abuse liability of ultraviolet tanning: A behavioral economic approach to tanning addiction

Many adults engage in ultraviolet indoor tanning despite evidence of its association with skin cancer. The constellation of behaviors associated with ultraviolet indoor tanning is analogous to that in other behavioral addictions. Despite a growing literature on ultraviolet indoor tanning as an addiction, there remains no consensus on how to identify ultraviolet indoor tanning addictive tendencies. The purpose of the present study was to translate a behavioral economic task more commonly used in substance abuse to quantify the "abuse liability" of ultraviolet indoor tanning, establish construct validity, and determine convergent validity with the most commonly used diagnostic tools for ultraviolet indoor tanning addiction (i.e., mCAGE and mDSM‐IV‐TR). We conducted a between‐groups study using a novel hypothetical Tanning Purchase Task to quantify intensity and elasticity of ultraviolet indoor tanning demand and permit statistical comparisons with the mCAGE and mDSM‐IV‐TR. Results suggest that behavioral economic demand is related to ultraviolet indoor tanning addiction status and adequately discriminates between potential addicted individuals from nonaddicted individuals. Moreover, we provide evidence that the Tanning Purchase Task renders behavioral economic indicators that are relevant to public health research. The present findings are limited to two ultraviolet indoor tanning addiction tools and a relatively small sample of high‐risk ultraviolet indoor tanning users; however, these pilot data demonstrate the potential for behavioral economic assessment tools as diagnostic and research aids in ultraviolet indoor tanning addiction studies.